That curl their taper tails, and, frisking, court Their piebald mates enamour’d: their red eyes Flash fires impure; nor rest, nor food, they take, Goaded by furious love. In separate cells Confine them now, lest bloody civil wars Annoy thy peaceful state. If left at large, The growling rivals in dread battle join, And rude encounter. On Scamander’s streams, Heroes of old with far less fury fought, For the bright Spartan dame, their valour’s prize. Mangled and torn, thy favourite hounds shall lie, Stretch’d on the ground; thy kennel shall appear A field of blood: like some unhappy town, In civil broils confused, while discord shakes Her bloody scourge aloft, fierce parties rage, Staining their impious hands in mutual death. And still the best beloved, and bravest fall: Such are the dire effects of lawless love. Huntsman! these ills, by timely prudent care, Prevent: for every longing dame select Some happy paramour; to him, alone, In leagues connubial join. Consider well His lineage; what his fathers did of old, Chiefs of the pack, and first to climb the rock, Or plunge into the deep, or thread the brake, [Sidenote: BOOK IV THE CHASE v. 63-86.] With thorns sharp-pointed, plash’d, and briers in-woven. Observe with care, his shape, sort, colour, size. Nor will sagacious huntsmen less regard His inward habits: the vain babbler shun, Ever loquacious, ever in the wrong. His foolish offspring shall offend thy ears With false alarms, and loud impertinence. Nor less the shifting cur avoid, that breaks Illusive from the pack; to the next hedge Devious he strays; there, every meuse he tries; If haply then he cross the steaming scent, Away he flies, vain-glorious; and exults, As of the pack supreme, and in his speed And strength unrivall’d. Lo! cast far behind, His vex’d associates pant, and, labouring, strain To climb the steep ascent. Soon as they reach The insulting boaster, his false courage fails, Behind he lags, doom’d to the fatal noose; His master’s hate, and scorn of all the field. What can from such be hoped, but a base brood Of coward curs, a frantick, vagrant race? When now the third revolving moon appears, With sharpen’d horns, above the horizon’s brink, Without Lucina’s aid, expect thy hopes [Sidenote: BOOK IV THE CHASE v. 87-110.]